


All in Good Time

by Ogopogoelmo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Brainwashing, I promise, Magic, Magicstuck, Neglect, Torture, and change the warnings, and the ratings, i'll probs add more characters later, im not sure if any of these will apply later on but we'll see how it goes, lets see here..., not a sadstuck though, stridlondes are witches, theres a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 16:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8760655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ogopogoelmo/pseuds/Ogopogoelmo
Summary: When Dave and Dirk get are forced to switch schools yet again, the last thing they expected to happen was for them to make actual friends there. Wait, scratch that, the last thing they expected was for these friends to turn out to be relatives; and witches. Oh, and did he mention? Turns out Dave and Dirk are witches too, fancy that. Maybe this move wouldn’t turn out to be so boring after all…





	1. Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

> okay so imma put a disclaimer here: i have written nothing before in my life. So if this is shit then that might have something to do with it, but for some odd reason my brain wouldn't shut up until i got this written down somewhere so have at it. Comments, criticisms and kudos are appreciated.

If there was one thing Rose learned from talking to the creatures of the deep it was that they found the monotonous drone of the history teacher's voice just as mind numbing as she did herself. How one acquired the ability to quiet even the monsters of the furthest ring while simultaneously talking about the murders of thousands is a skill that she would love to acquire, but alas, if she were to even try she was sure she’d manage to put herself in the same predicament as her classmates; sleeping as soundly as the dead. 

Abruptly Rose was pulled from her musings by a paper projectile connecting with the back of her skull. Looking over her shoulder as covertly as possible, she was not at all surprised to discover her sister's face playfully sticking its’ tongue out at her. She and Roxy would have to have another little chat about abusing powers whilst in the middle of a school day. Although there was no chance of someone being able to view the void window that Roxy had opened, there was however a chance of someone seeing a paper ball appear seemingly out of thin air. This was exactly why Rose chose seats in the back of classrooms. 

Alas, contrite was not a look that Roxy Lalonde wore for such minor offenses; instead, she seemed quite smug for having been able to draw her younger siblings’ attention. Rose carefully reached behind her to where the ball had landed. Placing it on the desk and smoothing it out, she quickly read the message scrawled before writing a passage of her own and sneakily throwing the ball back through the window. 

Rosey the bestest and ~~gretist~~ greatest sister 5ever pleeeeaaassseee tell me theres a big fire somewhere that will force us to leave 

Unfortunately, I cannot, dear sister; however, I can say that things will be slightly more interesting, what with the new student that should be appearing in the upcoming minutes. 

P.S Please consider a more mundane means of communication such as the cell phones mother so lovingly acquired for us both. 

It took next to no stretch of the imagination for Rose to envision the look of frustration that would cross Roxy’s face; her sibling was nothing if not predictable. To be fair though, if Roxy was to use her cell phone in class Rose had not a shred of doubt in her mind that the Roxy’s lovely teacher Mr. Burks would swiftly and surely take it into his possession. All the better in Rose’s opinion; Roxy could not afford another failing grade lest their mother turn to drastic measures. 

Rose attempted to shake herself from thoughts of her sisters impending demise and instead tried, and failed, yet again, to listen to Mr. Johnston’s lecture. Just another 34 minutes before she would be released from her classroom purgatory. 

***************

Man, what was with schools and owning the most obnoxiously fluorescent lights that money could buy? Shit was a damn conspiracy; kids might actually be able to function like normal human beings if they would just use real light bulbs. Then again, that would mean that he wouldn’t have an excuse to wear his sweet ass shades. A Strider without his shades is like a pope without his funny hat; you just don’t see that shit. Dave attempted to squint at the timetable he was holding past the budding headache the unholy lights were causing. Jegus, could they make this thing anymore confusing? Not everyone can have the Strider Swag but this was downright sad. 

Before Dave could lament his inability to read the paper in front of him any further, a hand darted over his shoulder to point at one of the boxes. “Ya have creative writing next.” muttered Dave’s brother, Dirk. 

“First off, how can you even tell with this chicken scratch? Like I swear that chick has some avian blood somewhere down the family tree. Did ya see that nose she had? That shit could peck your eyes out. Ya would be sitting there mindin’ your own business and BAM there goes your eyes. Wait, where was I? Oh, right, and secondly, where is it if you're such a genius? 

The side of Dirks mouth twitched up in a smirk. “If ya weren’t so busy with your phone, ya would know that the school planners miss hawk nose gave us has a map in it.” 

“Huh” 

“Yup” 

“Well butter my rump and call me a biscuit,” Dave said in the strongest Texan accent he could muster up. This elicited a snort from the elder Strider. 

“Try not to get lost while I’m away will ya?” he said with a wave as he trotted off, apparently on the way to his own classroom. 

Dave sighed to himself as he spent the next 4 min and 38 seconds locating where he was supposed to go with directions from the map his brother so lovingly pointed out. He had another minute and 18 seconds before the last class to be let out, so he decided to kill the time with some good ol’ Flappy Bird. After having killed that poor bird off to an early grave over a dozen times, Dave put his phone away just as the bell began to ring and kids started to file out of the classrooms. 

Dave ducked his way inside once the last batch of students had left and made a beeline for a seat in the back of the classroom; for some reason teachers, didn’t like him drawing comics in class, so it was safer to stay as far away from them as possible. 

As the minutes ticked by, other students slowly started to trickle in, a few shooting curious glances towards the totally cool figure sitting in the back with the awesome shades. No one came up to talk to him, obviously too intimidated by his charms. That is until 14 seconds before the tardy bell rang, when a gothic beauty decided to glide her way through the door and walking towards the empty seat next to Dave. She, too, shot him a curious look, but hers didn’t seem to have the same level of awe to it as the others. Rather, it had a sort of calculating quality to it that almost had Dave squirming in his seat if it wasn’t for the patented stoic Strider face helping to keep his cool. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t feel at least a little relieved when she focused her attention on the teacher making their way towards the front of the classroom. 

Well if everyone had as much balls as this chick did, then maybe this school wouldn’t be as boring as Dave previously thought.


	2. Tentative Relations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at me updating things and being productive

God, did people give Dirk a headache. It wasn’t so bad after he got used to being around them for a while, but it was always the same song and dance whenever Bro decided to uproot them to some new school, in some new state.

Dave and Dirk usually had a bit of forewarning about a move, though not from any verbal communication from Bro. It was always the same steps a few weeks leading up to an upheaval. First Bro would get a little too twitchy during their usual training bouts, which meant a lot more bruises and a hell of a lot more gauze. Next was stopping the strifes altogether. That was usually a pretty big indicator. Typically, Bro wanted them to be at the top of their game at all times, “just in case” as Bro always put it. Stopping the strife seemed to Dirk like Bro’s little way of prepping for the worst; he didn’t want them weakened by the usual bumps that came along with the pastime. It would be about 3 days later that Bro would usually wake them up at some ungodly hour and rush them out the door.

That was usually the worst part for Dirk. He would finally get comfortable, with everything right where he liked it, then they’d have to up and leave it all behind. Just once Dirk wished that he could stay in a school long enough for him to actually get caught up with the schoolwork.

Trying to pay attention to his new teacher and ignore the near constant buzzing of the other students whispering amongst themselves was really starting to take its toll. The obnoxiously loud sound of the bell did nothing to relieve the fact. At least he enjoyed his next subject; although he wasn’t a large fan of programming himself, it did come in handy whenever he managed to stick around someplace long enough to get parts together to make some of his robots. It nearly broke his heart when he had to leave Squarewave behind. He had finally gotten his voice box to work right, too.

Dirk was pulled out of his reverie when he heard the sound of a chair scraping the floor next to him and a body flopping enthusiastically into it. He must have zoned out on the way to class, he didn’t really remember sitting down in the first place. Oh well, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

Dirks headache must really be getting to him, it took almost a full minute to notice the hand waving eagerly in his face. The girl the hand was attached to was sporting a wide, curious grin. “What’s your name there, stranger. Not that I mean you’re strange or anything, I mean you’re not exactly the mysterious figure type. Although you do have the tall part down pat, and figuring out how you get your hair to stay like that is seriously a mystery. So, what IS your name, mister tall, and handsome?”

Dirk was left stunned. He was used to Dave’s rants, but this chick’s enthusiasm was not something he was equipped for. After a few beats of expectant silence, he was finally able to manage a curt “Dirk,” which, although brief, seemed only to encourage a new level of excitement in the girl.

“OMG, I totes forgot to introduce myself! I’m Roxy just FYI, but feel free to call me Ro-lal, it’s what all my friends call me. So, you’re new here, right? Well, obviously, you’re new, I mean lol, it's not like I’ve seen you here before or anything. So, what neck of the woods you pop out of?”

“Nowhere special,” Dirk muttered. He hoped Roxy would soon get bored when she didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for, but alas this didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, she chattered almost incessantly up until the tardy bell rang and the teacher gathered the attention of the class to hand out assignments.

It was a simple job, in Dirk’s opinion. The task was to write a code that would sort a set of randomly generated numbers into odds and evens. Dirk had it done in less than 5 minutes, so he decided to use the rest of his class time to write up a little more of Squarewave’s code.

The only problem was that he couldn’t seem to get the process to run properly… maybe he forgot to close a bracket?... no, that’s not it… maybe it’s just the language he was using?... that’s not it either…

“You forgot the semicolon” Of course, amateur mistake….

Whoa, wait a second… Dirk turned his head to his neighbor, realizing that that wasn’t his inner monologue talking, to see Roxy with a friendly, if not smug, grin stretching across her cheeks.

“I think I make a great rubber duck,” Roxy said with a smirk.

Dirk felt his impassive façade crack for a second in confusion. Rubber duck? What was this chick going off about?

Roxy must have been able to see his bewilderment, because she started off on another tangent. “You know, like with programmers? Whenever programmers have trouble with a code they talk to a rubber duck to help them sort all that jazz out. I am totes willing to be your rubber duck. Though unlike the duck I’m going to answer back, cause otherwise my brain might explode.”

Maybe it was Roxy’s infectious personality finally starting to take hold, but Dirk allowed a small grin to cross his face. “Well, let’s get rollin’ then, Ro-lal”

Roxy’s smile was absolutely blinding as she skirted her chair closer to Dirk’s to get a better view of the monitor. They spent the next hour or so left of class pouring over the code. It had been a long time since Dirk had had this much fun in a stranger’s company; he only wished that maybe they might stick around here a little longer before moving again.

**********

Roxy was having an absolute blast. When Rosey had told her that she was getting a new classmate, the last thing she expected was the tall and hott boy sitting beside her. Like, how did he even get his hair to stay like that? It looked silky smooth still, and if she didn’t already have her own secret hair regime she would have asked him what his hair care schedule was like. Although he probably wouldn’t have given her a clear answer; talking did not seem to be Dirks strong suit.

How soon is too soon to ask for someone’s number? She just met the guy, but she reaaaalllyyy wanted to get his number. She had told him that all her friends called her Ro-Lal but if she was being super truthful, she didn’t really have many besides her sis. Her phone was severely lacking in contacts.

Roxy spared a quick glance towards the boy sitting next to her. She really wanted this friendship to work. Well, there was no time like the present…

Roxy turned her chair to face Dirk and put a wide grin on her face to hide her nervousness. “Hey Di-Stri, how about you give me your digits?”

His face remained mostly unreadable except for the raised eyebrows above his shades. It unspoken question was clear enough with just that though.

“Don’t look at me like that! I just thought that you might need some more help with the programming and I thought I could offer my services. Maybe we can even just talk as friends, maybe?” The last sentence trailed off until it was nothing more than a low mumbling once Roxy began to lose her nerve.

She took a quick peek upwards through her eyelashes when Dirk didn’t immediately answer after a few seconds, only to see what was apparently an incredibly stunned boy.

“You want to be friends with me?” he said in an almost indiscernible monotone.

Roxy threw her hands up in a rush to assure him. “That would be totes awesomesauce, but only if you want to. Would you want to?” she asked hesitantly.

“Um, yeah, actually, that would be cool,” he said with a small, almost imperceptible smile. “That’d be really cool,”

 

 


	3. the new and the old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, i have no good exuse as to why this took so long, lifes been busy and i also kind of forgot about it. so here, have this heaping pile of dung *flings and runs away*

Rose was confused.

This may not seem noteworthy, but for someone like Rose, this was an issue she was not equipped to deal with. When every moment of your day and night is laid out before, uncertainty becomes an impossibility. And yet, somehow, Rose found herself confronted with this very problem in the form of the boy seated beside her.

Rose tried to rationalize with herself. Perhaps she was tired and it was interfering with her powers. Well, nothing better than a little trial to test the theory…

Rose looked ahead to one of her classmates making a ruckus in front of the teacher’s desk. She closes her eyes and takes a calm breath, and is immediately bombarded as she opens them again. A reel of every moment of his existence is presented to her, from his birth to his first day of school up until the present moment but still the pictures come. She see’s the years ahead of him, every moment leading up to his death, and yet there he still sits, joking about whatever benign thing he saw on television the night before.

Well, that ruled out one possibility she supposed.

She turned back to blond and rather then be greeted with yet another barrage of images she is greeted with nothing but silence. As far as her powers are concerned he might as well not exist at all, and yet there he sat.

Maybe a bit of conversation with him might award her with some knowledge of this human enigma, but this presented a problem… what should she say?!

It's not like she can just casually go “oh, hey, why do the powers of the furthest ring and of the almighty horror terrors say that you don’t exist?” No, she would have to find some way to ease herself into a conversation. Possibly she could try the commonplace route of discussing the weather? That’s something that normal people talk about, right?... by the gods, she needed to brush up on her conversational skills, it would seem. 

Rose was pulled from her deliberation by the sound of the teacher, Mr. Harrison announcing the start of class. Rose knew that the assignment for the day was to work in pairs to create a poem about family, with each partner taking turns to write a line. Originally, she was to work alone since the class was an odd number, but with this new addition, she would have a collaborator to work with. It provided a perfectly acceptable reason for Rose to get to know the boy.

Rose waited patiently for the teacher to finish their explanation before turning to her desk mate. Hopefully her expression didn’t betray too much of her curiosity.

“Hello, my name is Rose Lalonde, pleasure to meet you.”

“sup”

“… And you are?”

“Dave. Dave Strider”

“So, how do you wish to proceed?”

“Well, my first suggestion is putting words on the page. I'll let you go first tho, wouldn’t want my word swag to leave you speechless.”

Rose had to pause for a moment to process the amount of idiocy that just spewed from her partners’ mouth. This was going to be harder than she thought.

“How… thoughtful of you,” she finally retorted. “But I assure you that I should be able to restrain my awe enough for us to finish the assignment.”

“Shit, I’m so magnanimous; it is me.”

“Thank you, oh benevolent one.”

Rose opened her binder to withdraw some paper and placed it between them.

~~~

The next hour was… interesting, to say the least. Strider seemed to feel the need to comment on his “sheer awesomeness” at every discernible opportunity. Rose guessed that it was merely a cover up for something; even without her vision she could see how transparent he was. It was surprisingly relaxing to not be able to use her abilities, it was like a breath of fresh air in comparison the her usual time observing people.

Even more surprising was that she found that she was having fun. It had been quite a while since anyone that wasn’t a family member had been willing to strike up a conversation with her.

When it was finally time to turn in their assignment, she couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Dave has somehow caused the poem to devolve into a story about a squirrel and nachos, of all things.

When the bell finally rang, signaling the end of the school day, Rose was startled to find Dave easily falling into step beside her as if this was a common occurrence. Deciding to bypass stopping by her locker, she continued walking towards the parking lot and her sister’s car.

Rose was the first to have reached the car. Usually her sister would have beaten her to it, but Rose knew that her sister was otherwise occupied with the other new addition to the school body.

Rose risked a quick glance upwards towards the small bit of sunlight peeking through the clouds. Through it She caught a quick look at her sister talking animatedly with him, apparently, he would also be joining them at the car shortly.

She allowed herself to tune back into whatever tangent Dave had managed to dig himself into as her sister pushed open the school doors. Dave paused mid-soliloquy as the two caught up with them.

“Sup,” Dirk muttered as he made to stand beside Dave and offered up a fist bump. Roxy looked at Dirk in confusion.

“You know him?”

Of course, Dave was Dirk’s sibling, Rose thought to herself. It was too much of a coincidence for there to be two transfers in a single day, the douche shades should have been enough of a give away.

“He’s my bro,” Dirk answered.

Rose offered her hand daintily. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Much like Dave, Dirk seems to feel the need to ignore normal pleasantries and fist bumped her instead. Rose retracted her hand with a sigh as Roxy only beamed at her.

“Do you guys need a ride home?” Roxy asked excitedly as she leaned on Rose’s shoulder.

Dirk and Dave glanced at each other through their shades, each giving almost imperceptible head tilts and shoulder shrugs in a weird resemblance of their own language before Dave finally looked up.

“Nah, a car can’t contain the sheer awesomeness of havin’ two Striders in such a small space. It's like tryin’ to hold a greased-up pig; soon there’s just a pool of grease and there’s our swag duking it out as the crowd cheers. There can only be one.”

“Are you quite sure? We would be more than comfortable to open the sunroof to release some of your so-called swag.”

Dirk interrupted before Dave could create another broken metaphor “We’re fine; we live close by.”

Roxy face fell before she looked back up and beamed a smile at Dirk. “I’ll see you, tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. See ya then, Rolal” Dirk said with a wave before turning around and walking off.

Dave shot a look at his retreating brothers back before giving Rose a nod and a hurried, “Catch ya later.” Turning, he jogged after his brother.

Rose turned towards Roxy. “Well, it seemed you had fun.” Rose commented

The smile Roxy gave Rose could have melted the ice caps. “Omg Rose we had sooo much fun…”

********************

It didn’t take Dave long to catch up with his brother who had stopped soon after turning the corner out of sight.

“Your gal pal looked a little heart broken for a sec there, bro.”

Dirk didn’t even glance at his brother as he continued walking the direction to their new apartment. “She’ll get over it.”

“Remind me again why we couldn’t have just gotten a ride?” Dave muttered

“What do ya think Bro would say if he saw us coming home in a chick’s car? One he didn’t know?”

“He’d probs just beat our asses,” Dave sighed out after a beat.

“Exactly. It’s best that we just avoid that whole shebang all together.”

Both boys fell silent in contemplation until the doors leading to the lobby of their apartment came into view. With a shared glance, they both began the trek up the stairs apprehensively. The boys stopped as they finally reached their floor.

“I’m gonna head in first this time,” Dirk said with a tone that broached no argument.

Dave sputtered, “Like hell ya are; you went in first last time.”

Dirk pinned Dave with a look that clearly stated, “tough luck” before carefully easing open the unlocked door to their apartment.

He stayed crouched low to the floor as Dave carefully followed in behind. With each step forward, Dirk cautiously took in their surroundings, trying to find anything that might have changed in the time since they left for school. Noticing the slightly shifted carpet corner, Dirk pointed it out to Dave before easing his way around it and attempting to step between the pile of smuppets and a wobbly end table they had picked off the curb.

This seemed to be exactly what Bro had expected, because as Dirk struggled to step over a particularly well placed smuppet, his hand landed on the end table triggering a string of fireworks to fall to the floor with a loud series of snaps and bangs and the sharp smell of chemicals.

Both boys quickly dashed to find the nearest weapon, Dirk going for the one he knew was behind the couch while Dave made a quick dash towards one of the many adorned on the walls. Dave wasn’t quite fast enough, though, as a figure swung his way through the window and into the apartment, both legs hitting Dave in the chest and causing him to fly into the nearest table edge with a small grunt of pain. He scrambled to get up with a wince as he moved his shoulder. The figure made a swing with his own blade aimed at Dave but Dirk was there to parry the move swiftly, awarding Dave enough time to grab a weapon of his own hidden in a pile of smuppets.

Dave quickly moved to his brother’s side as with each swing the figure was gaining ground and Dirk was being forced back. Abruptly the figure retreated, but not before shooting each of the boys a pointed glare and pointing towards the roof. As the figure swung himself back through the window the two teens shot each other a harried look.

“Wonder what we did to piss Bro off this early,” Dave said through panted breaths.

“Let’s go before we make it any worse,” Dirk sighed as he spared a glance at the small nicks and cuts he had managed to accumulate in the short struggle.

The two made their way towards the staircase up to the roof with trepidation.

~~~

The next 4 hours were spent with both boys being worked relentlessly, no time for breath being granted and the sun beating incessantly down on them. As the sun finally began to set they were left as a sweaty mass on the slowly cooling gravel of the roof.

Dave noticed Dirk attempting to ease himself into a sitting position, clutching his side. One of Bro’s kicks had managed to land squarely on his brother’s side and Dave wouldn’t be surprised if Dirk had a broken rib; he would for sure have a nasty bruise forming already.

Dave tried to sit up himself and take stock of the damages. Looking down at his shirt he let out a pained sigh. The various cuts in the fabric would probably have been easily fixable by Dirk, but the various blood stains from his still leaking cuts along Dave’s torso would be a might bit harder to get rid of.

Dave glanced up as Dirks hand eased into his vision, offering help to stand. Dave gladly accepted as he was heaved upwards with a combined groan from both boys. They made their way slowly down the stairs on unsteady legs. Making their way towards their shared room. Dave beelined, flopping onto their queen mattress while Dirk made his way towards the closet and grabbed the first aid kit tucked inside. Dave made a grab towards his backpack and rooted around inside for the protein bars tucked away at the bottom.

“The dinner of kings.” Dave said self deprecatingly as Dirk set the bandages beside him and made to begin treating his injuries. Both were silent as Dirk worked and Dave ate. A light swat to his back alerted him that Dirk was finished and signaled for Dave to begin doing the same for Dirk. When both were deemed done, they quickly packed away the unused supplies and fell to the mattress in mutual exhaustion. 

“Well, at least no stairs were involved this time,” Dirk muttered to lighten the mood.

“That’s ‘cause I warned you about the stairs, bro,” Dave replied readily, although both boys could tell that his heart wasn’t really in it. “Let’s just get some sleep.” Dave uttered in the ensuing silence. Dave sighed and turned over with a muffled “night bro.” Dirk Grunted in return as he tried to make himself comfortable without tweaking his side. It wasn’t long before the exhaustion pulled both boys into blissful unconsciousness.


End file.
